Dear Tallahassee: The Second Amendment Requires No “Guardian”

Legislative sessions continue to confirm many uncomfortable truths. One is that people are just plain stupid. Another is what Cicero said (just a few years back): “The more laws, the less justice.”

Case in point: the Second Amendment runs all of twenty-six words – plain, simple, so unambiguous a Supreme Court Lackey can almost understand it. That was then, in 1791. Today, on or about May 1, 2019, the sad, slow legislature of the great, humid State of Florida* gave us House Bill 7093 (2019), the “Armed Teachers Act.” (As of my typing time, it is assumed that Governor What’s-His-Guy will sign it into immediate lawful effect). It’s some 42 pages, around 9,000 words. The verbose, the numerological, and the pedantic, especially those Freudianly obsessed with “Incorporation,” must be ecstatic with both the law and with my take. It’s 350 times the law!!!

I know, as a right-winger and a gun nut I’m supposed to be happy that brave “Guardians” will be armed and patrolling the Sunshine State schools to protect them youngins. So sorry (not really), but I just don’t feel warm and fuzzy about this overwrought piece of official toilet paper.

Read all about the excitement of it from The Miami Herald. It’s a good article but it’s full of quotes from politi-critters. Those, I tend to “hear” more than I read. Honestly, they all sound like lound, angry rats scrambling up a gravelly embankment to escape a sex orgy of leeches and coyotes. [Threw up a little in my mouth just thinking of it].

For now we shall leave the demographic and practical political angles alone beyond a few points tangential to the following, to wit:

It’s still no respect for the Second Amendment and it does nothing to eliminate government schools … but Florida’s (soon-to-be?) school gun law is a half-step in a sideways direction.

After about seven hours of angry, sometimes deeply painful debate about race and gun violence that spanned two days, the Florida House passed a bill that would allow classroom teachers to be armed in an expansion of the program it created last year after the Parkland shooting.

The debate at times reached a heightened pitch that had Democrats shouting or tearing up as black members delved into details about their personal experiences with racism and their deep-seated fears about minority children being targeted by teachers who have guns.

The bill is now on its way to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk. For teachers and other staff to be armed, school districts must opt-in to the so-called “Guardian program,” which allows teachers and other staff to volunteer to carry a gun on campus after undergoing screening and training by a local sheriff’s office.

I thought to make this my secondary TPC bit of the week if that even happens. We’ll see. Yippee.

The FBI on Saturday said it had arrested Larry Hopkins, the leader of an armed group that is stopping undocumented migrants after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border into New Mexico.

The arrest came two days after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) accused the group of illegally detaining migrants and New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered an investigation.

Hopkins, 69, also known as Johnny Horton, was arrested in Sunland Park, New Mexico, on a federal complaint charging him with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

“We’re not worried about it, he’s going to be cleared,” said Jim Benvie, a spokesman for the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), blaming his arrest on political pressure from Lujan Grisham.

Even with a national emergency (heretofore with NO emergency action), we can’t halt the migratory flow but we can persecute our own. Hey, Donald! You’re doing it wrong. Ask Nancy and AOC. This guy’s okay. This is a man whom most Democrats wouldn’t mind voting. That is if he really is a convicted felon.

I hope he’s released within 20 days. He’s just an unaccompanied “minor” and “refugee” of the documented variety. No felon is illegal – unless enforcing the law is illegal.

The truth is that gun violence in America, including school shootings, is down. It makes sense that, as such, the NRA might slow down. Then again, this is America, where little makes sense. The people drift stupidly towards socialism, which usually comes with gun control (then atrocity).

The influence of the National Rifle Association, the nation’s highest-profile Second Amendment-rights organization and a longtime powerhouse against gun-control laws, is showing signs of potential decline.

The NRA’s own tax forms show a dip in revenue. And even as the group, now under the leadership of new president Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame, continues to spend big money on federal lobbying and political campaigns, its opponents in the gun-control movement, after decades of ever more deadly mass shootings and seemingly random incidents of gun violence, have been on the rise.

This article has a veritable list of companies of which to be wary; look at them:

Smaller players largely have sidestepped scrutiny about their products or their financing because activists have mostly focused on pressuring big retailers and gun makers with publicly traded stock or debt held by mutual funds. Excluding the big three, there were 28 companies that made 10,000 or more rifles in 2016, up from 20 companies in 2011, according to ATF data.

“The number of manufacturers was shocking to me,” said Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer for the $219 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement system, which this fall started a new effort to press gun makers and retailers on safety.

Surging sales of assault-style rifles under the Obama administration paved the way for smaller gun makers to enter the market. Larger manufacturers have in recent years had trouble meeting a spike in demand for rifles like the semi-automatic AR-15, leaving room for Anderson and others, said Stefanie Zanders, chief operating officer of gun distributor Zanders Sporting Goods in Illinois.

“The ARs just took off, and some manufacturers couldn’t keep up,” she said in a telephone interview.

Overall, rifles accounted for 2.7 percent of the weapons used on U.S. murder victims in 2017, FBI data show. But assault-style rifles are at the center of America’s gun-policy debate because they have been used in deadly mass shootings, including last year’s sniper attack that killed 58 at a Las Vegas music festival.

No. Not the gun makers. Look at the banks, funds, and other meddling corporations, ready to squash the 2A and your other freedoms. It’s amusing that some of the biggest players, accustomed to heavy-handing larger manufacturers via their investment strategies, are at a total loss as to how to handle small, private firms.

Also, per stats I’ve used before, this piece shows (again) that ALL rifles account for a minuscule percentage of criminal activity – way behind bats, fists, and feet.

These would-be gun grabbing companies are anti-freedom and anti-American. Remember their names. (And there are plenty more).

In the Illinois Capitol rotunda this month, several traditions are being celebrated. There’s a Nativity scene for Christmas, a menorah for Hanukkah, and then something a little different: an arm holding an apple, with a snake coiled around it.

It’s a gift from the Chicago branch of The Satanic Temple. Called “Snaketivity,” the work also has a sign that reads “Knowledge Is The Greatest Gift.”

Nearby stands a sign in which the state offers a civics lesson — and explains it didn’t have much of a choice:

“The State of Illinois is required by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to allow temporary, public displays in the state capitol so long as these displays are not paid for by taxpayer dollars. Because the first floor of the Capitol Rotunda is a public place, state officials cannot legally censor the content of speech or displays. The United States Supreme Court has held that public officials may legally impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions regarding displays and speeches, but no regulation can be based on the content of the speech.”

Illinois Secretary of State spokesman Dave Druker toldThe State Journal-Record the temple has the same rights as religious organizations. “This recognizes that.”

The Satanic Temple calls itself a “non-theistic organization” in its application to install the display.

In a GoFundMe campaign to raise $1,500 for the display, the group explains its mission: “The Satanic Temple—Chicago will no longer allow one religious perspective to dominate the discourse in the Illinois State Capitol rotunda during the holiday season. … Please consider what you may do to help us bring Satan to Springfield!”

The group has installed similar displays in other states in recent years. A more snake-prominent version of the display has been a part of the holiday scene on the lawn of the Michigan Capitol. Outside the Arkansas State Capitol in August, the temple presented a statue of a goat-headed creature named Baphomet, flanked by two children looking up at him, to protest a display of the Ten Commandments.

Despite its name, many of the Satanic Temple’s activities demonstrate a particular concern for fighting — or at least revealing — the influence of religion in public life. And satanic sculptures have so far been an effective legal strategy for making its case.

On its website, the Satanic Temple explains that its mission “is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.”

The temple has also taken steps to protect its trademarks, especially against depictions that present its symbols as actually nefarious. Last month, the temple settled a lawsuit with Warner Bros. and Netflix, after a reboot of the teen witch show Sabrina used a copy of the goat-headed statue in an episode. The temple argued the statue “not only infringed on its copyright, but damaged its reputation by portraying the statue as evil,” The New York Timesreported.

The Journal-Register notes other symbols that have been placed in the Illinois Capitol rotunda. Currently on display is a statement from the Freedom From Religion Foundation marking the winter solstice and asserting that “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

In 2008, a Springfield man got permission to install a Festivus pole at the statehouse, inspired by the holiday celebrated by the Costanzas on Seinfeld. A sign explained that the traditional airing of grievances would start early that year.

Thank God that liberals have given us a sound playbook for handling this sort of thing. I see three approaches which could be utilized individually or in concert.

First, we can simply claim, no evidence needed, that the Satanists are neo-Confederates racists. A handy mob can gather and just tear down the display. The police will stand idly by. NPR and the NYT will write something glowing about tolerance and inclusion.

Second, we could apply the new Second Amendment “logic” to the First Amendment. The Founders, all racist white cis-gendered males, envisioned a Christian nation. That’s the religion they had in mind for the Bill of Rights and all else. They could not have envisioned the descent into and the expression of such high-capacity, fully-automatic cults of darkness, especially, as here, being openly admired in the land. Think of the new Amerikan immigrant children.

We know that only the police and the military need religion. Nobody needs a religious statute featuring an apple. A 150-year waiting period, a psychiatric examination, and a costly free exercise license practically suggest themselves. Common sense Luciferian control. No-one wants to take away the First Amendment. Wait… Per Bow Tie Stevens, the only man who was alive when the Consitution was adopted, we can just repeal the First. Done.

Lastly, in addition to the above measure, we may pretend this hellish display is really on some virtual social media platform. Surely, the temple loons promote it via Farcebook or Twit-er. Accordingly, the display, it’s promoters and supporters can be de-platformed and un-personed. This hideous display mentions something about knowledge. That usually means facts. We know facts are as racist as an IQ test. Plus, there’s the whole “blame Eve” thing. #MeToo, original version. Hate must be undone wherever we find it. Diversity.

Cody Wilson, a leading proponent of 3-D printed guns, has been arrested in Taiwan after being charged in Texas with sexually assaulting a 16-year old girl there, Taiwanese officials said on Friday.

Police in the Wanhua district of Taipei arrested Mr. Wilson and delivered him to the National Immigration Agency, according to officials in the city.

The police in Austin, Tex., had said on Wednesday that Mr. Wilson had failed to board a flight back the United States from Taipei, and that they had asked the U.S. Marshals Lone Star Fugitive Task Force for help locating him.

Mr. Wilson, 30, is accused of taking a girl he met via the website SugarDaddyMeet[dot]com to a hotel in Austin on Aug. 15, having sex with her and paying her $500 in cash, according to an affidavit filed in Travis County on Wednesday.

SugarDaddyMeet[dot]com… Is that for those times when swiping right or left requires too much class?

If this isn’t true, then it’s a hit. Wilson has made some powerful enemies via his promotion of the 2A, 1A, and general freedom.

Either way, this is the worst kind of distraction at a time when our aging, declining Boomer friends of the “conservative” bent are signing on with more gun control.

A silver lining, again if the allegations are accurate: Cory Booker may have found his running mate for the losing 2020 ticket. Alternatively, the Clinton (Criminal) Foundation may have found that replacement agent for Haiti.

The weaker-than-expected results bucked a trend in the retail sector, which largely has benefited from a surge in consumer spending fueled by a booming economy.

Consumer confidence for August, measured by the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index, was the highest its been in about 18 years. That sentiment, along with other factors, has powered companies such as Walmart Inc. WMT -0.42% and Target Corp. TGT +1.11% to their best quarterly results in more than a decade.

Dick’s said part of the company’s sales problems were a result of Under Armour’s decision to sell in more stores including Kohl’s.

Also hurting sales was Dick’s decision to tighten its policy on gun sales after 17 people were killed in a February shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school. The retailer halted sales of any firearms to people under age 21 at all of its 845 Dick’s and Field & Stream stores, and stopped selling assault-style weapons at Field & Stream.

This is a follow-up to some of my recent columns, Posse Comitatus, A Short History of Gun Control in America, and others. The Second Amendment and its subject matter have been in the news recently as part of the never-ending “debate” over gun control. The Amendment has also received special attention from the U.S. Supreme Court twice in the past five years.

My purpose here is to explain what the Amendment means and what most commentators (even pro-firearms authors) miss in their reading and application. Even if you do not own guns or have an interest in them, this issue affects you and your Liberty. Somewhere in the writing process, I realized I should have divided this into several segments. My apologies for the heft of the article. Sadly, I didn’t even get to add in half of what I should – maybe a book is in order? certainly a follow-up’s follow-up.

He said, “Your second amendment rights … will never, ever be under siege as long as I am president. … We believe that our liberty is a gift from our Creator, that no government can ever take it away.”

Kind of true, about the taking away part. No government can ever take away Natural Rights. Governments, historically, just suppress them, steal things associated with them, and jail or kill people who stand up for them. GCA, NFA, FOPA, ETC. aside, it usually starts with little things. You know, like calling for admin bans on bump stocks.